Sunday, February 26, 2006

Zimbabwe again

You may remember that I recently noted that the gov't of Zimbabwe has introduced a 50k bearer note because the money that they are printing is worthless....imagine showing up at the grocery store with 100,000 dollars to buy a gallon of milk---you had to have some pretty big bills in order to even walk in the door.

Well a couple weeks ago a loaf of bread was 60k. This week, it is 70k. A breeding cow is 15-20 million. Compared to 500-700$ in the US. Everything has collapsed into a black market barter economy, one cannot open an account at a bank or borrow money for business ventures or capital improvements or construction, because think about it: 1000% inflation means that the 10 million you borrow today to buy a cow will only buy a hundredth of a cow in a year.

But don't forget, our economy is in the tanks. Of course, in the US the biggest health risk to the poor is........obesity. That might be a world first.

How to fix? More capitalism, more free markets, less Mugabe, less government. The saddest part is that Zimbabwe was a country that used to actually produce enough food to feed it's people, and export goods to the world, now half the population faces starvation.